A review by sbbarnes
The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey
3.0
Snow Queen retelling. This volume of the Elemental Masters introduces Sarah, Nan, Isabelle and Frederick Harton and their school, and also Peter Alderscroft at greater length. It follows Sarah and Nan being accepted into the Harton's school and learning their abilities, while solving a bunch of ghost-related mysteries first in London and then in the country. Also features Robin Goodfellow, a lot of Shakespeare references, and I guess a plot about an Ice Master trying to kill Alderscroft and turn him to ice.
Issues:
-The plot arrives more than 100 pages into the book. Alderscroft and Cordelia don't show up for ages, and even when they do it takes forever for them to intersect with everyone else.
-The writing is occasionally pretty flat. Stuff happens very quickly and you don't really see much of it - just vague descriptions that Sarah and Nan are doing schoolwork and that Nan can already read after about two pages of her being in school, or the mention that they're doing Midsummer Night's Dream and then suddenly they already know all the lines and it's tomorrow. Also Sarah's perspective just vanishes immediately.
-It's still really colonial despite purporting to not be colonial because the white people are friends with the brown people they employ and also met while stationed on military missions in their countries.
- Feminism = evil? I know that's not what Lackey is going for, because in the Gates of Sleep that's a whole plot point about how Maya should totally be in on Alderscroft's little in-group. But uh yeah, totally legit to be an angry feminist, don't really buy how that would lead to selling your soul to the ice man.
- Could not take the description of the Gifted and Talented people seriously without thinking about the Princess Diaries.
Issues:
-The plot arrives more than 100 pages into the book. Alderscroft and Cordelia don't show up for ages, and even when they do it takes forever for them to intersect with everyone else.
-The writing is occasionally pretty flat. Stuff happens very quickly and you don't really see much of it - just vague descriptions that Sarah and Nan are doing schoolwork and that Nan can already read after about two pages of her being in school, or the mention that they're doing Midsummer Night's Dream and then suddenly they already know all the lines and it's tomorrow. Also Sarah's perspective just vanishes immediately.
-It's still really colonial despite purporting to not be colonial because the white people are friends with the brown people they employ and also met while stationed on military missions in their countries.
- Feminism = evil? I know that's not what Lackey is going for, because in the Gates of Sleep that's a whole plot point about how Maya should totally be in on Alderscroft's little in-group. But uh yeah, totally legit to be an angry feminist, don't really buy how that would lead to selling your soul to the ice man.
- Could not take the description of the Gifted and Talented people seriously without thinking about the Princess Diaries.